TAMPA — Didi Gregorius, health permitting, will play shortstop for the 2015 Yankees, and Brett Gardner, Jacoby Ellsbury’s health permitting, likely will hit second. No one will wear number 2. No one will take over as team captain.

Just one issue remains as the Yankees prepare for life without Derek Jeter:

Who will inherit the retired icon’s Yankee Stadium locker?

While this matter has not been fully settled, put some money on Gardner, the longest-tenured homegrown Yankee, longest continuous Yankee and a guy who has evolved into a team leadership role.

“He mentioned it to me, but I don’t know if anybody else is taking it or if he wants me to take it,” Gardner said of Cucuzza. “I told him I thought he should leave it vacant. But he said he can’t leave it vacant forever, obviously.”

There are many variables in play here, and this subject probably interests fans more than the Yankees players themselves. Not because players are immune to this sort of sentiment. Rather because of the specific design and history of the Yankees’ clubhouse.

In the old Yankee Stadium, one locker, in the right-hand corner as you entered, stood out as the presidential suite of the place. It ran far deeper than its fellow lockers, giving its occupant far more space, so to dress there became a status symbol. Mariano Rivera used it in the Stadium’s final two seasons, and Bernie Williams preceded Rivera, and Don Mattingly preceded Williams.

In the new Stadium, which opened in 2009, Jeter chose the locker closest to the bathroom and exit. In exchange for the longest walk to the dugout and field, he accepted the easiest escape route following games. The Yankees now offer many large units in their cavernous clubhouse, though.

Jeter and Gardner last season.Paul J. Bereswill

Alex Rodriguez selected one such locker in the far left corner as you enter. CC Sabathia picked one in the far right corner. Brian McCann dresses to your immediate left, and Mark Teixeira prepares a few lockers to McCann’s left. Carlos Beltran is toward the rear, to the left of the bathrooms and the exits, where Robinson Cano hung his day clothes for five years. None of these guys possesses any motivation to relocate.

“I’m going to be in my spot,” Sabathia said.

“I’m not moving lockers,” Teixeira said. “I’ve had the same one for six years. I like my locker.”

In 2009, Gardner had less than a full year of major league service time. He took the locker he was given, on the left side. Now one of the Yankees’ most reliable players, with a long-term contract signed through 2018, he has earned the right to an upgrade.

“I haven’t really put too much thought into it, out of respect for other guys,” Gardner said. “Maybe somebody else is getting it, or I’m not getting it.”

The Yankees, knowing that anything concerning Jeter will generate buzz, want to do this in as low-key a manner as possible. That makes it unlikely that someone like McCann, who will be looked upon to provide more leadership in Jeter’s absence, will be asked to move into Jeter’s old spot; it would become a bigger story since McCann just joined the Yankees last season.

“It’s a locker,” Joe Girardi said, in explaining why this subject hadn’t and wouldn’t reach his pay grade. “It’s not [Jeter’s] number. It’s not a ‘C’ on your chest. It’s a locker. He had a locker at the old Yankee Stadium. They didn’t move that over.

“Is it a convenient locker? Yes. Someone will probably really like it. But that’s Robbie’s job, and I let Robbie do his job.”

At the old Stadium, the prime corner locker stayed empty in 1996, after Mattingly left the club; Williams took over in 1997. So the team could swipe Gardner’s idea and leave Jeter’s locker unused for now.

However, as Cucuzza told Gardner, it can’t stay that way forever. Last September, when the rosters expanded, the Yankees gave away the suspended A-Rod’s locker to newcomer Chris Young. (By the way, if you hadn’t figured it out by now, Rodriguez has the longest service of active Yankees, having joined the team in 2004; by sitting out last year, he gave Gardner the “continuous” service record after Jeter retired.)

Gardner has handled far greater pressure than this. Moving into Jeter’s locker would represent just a small step in his development and yet also extend the giant leap he has taken since first putting on the pinstripes in The Bronx.